Talk:Erik the Okapi/@comment-25083225-20180903172423
Alright, so I'm going to review this in sections to make it more organized, since it's a lot easier to keep track of my thoughts if I break them down. I will warn you though, I'm giving my honest thoughts with this, so don't expect much sugar coating. I'm not going to attack and tear down this character either, but just keep it in mind. __________________________________________________________________________ The Overview: Erik's overview section in the top is passable, but there's a bit of stilted grammar choices that make it a bit harder to read: "Erik is not that much known in Porcupine Villiage" should be "Erik is not very well known in Porcupine Villiage, his hometown." The way you wrote it originally didn't tell the reader that he lived in Porcupine Villiage, which is important to his background. Also "as he is an inventor and photographer" should be its own sentence as it doesn't have anything to do with the first point in the sentence. The last paragraph in the first section is a grammatical mess, unfortunately. There are way too many commas, for one. Also, "good guy" is a really vague descriptor that doesn't give much detail when it comes to personality. You need to flesh out what makes him nice, what other character flaws he has, and other traits that would make him more of a well rounded character. __________________________________________________________________________ Appearance: I have absolutely no problems with Erik's design itself. In fact, I really like the idea of adding extra color in the stripes for detail, but the color pallette you chose is way too bright and colorful. The colors you chose are not only clashing and ostentatious in their variety, but also a bit prosaic. It just seems like you took the standard colors from MS paint or some other preloaded palette without editing the tones and shades to give it a consistent theme. Your character's image should give some sort of insight into who his is as a person, so I've recolored it to show you how I would redesign it: Alright, so for this guy, the first thing I did was make the skin color more peach/flesh-like and made his fur a tad more reddish, since it's closer to an Okapi's natural color. I also desaturated his eyes and chose a more yellowish, neon green color to better accentuate against his brown fur. I also made the green stripe on his head black, as it doesn't overwhelm the viewer with neon green and keeps it as an accent that pops out and compliments the rest of his palette. The main problems I had with his original color scheme involved his clothes though, as that's where most of the clashing variance was. To remedy this, I decided to use his backstory and species to create a consistent theme. Erik is a photographer, and his species is native to Africa, so I decided to apply this to his clothes by giving him a safari-style outfit. It gives him a sort of "nature photographer" feel and the less saturated khaki colors further accentuate the neon green stripes. So in conclusion, while I like the design itself, the color scheme needs to be toned down and rehauled in some way. __________________________________________________________________________ Basic Stats: It makes sense for his species to be really fast and agile, but the main issue with these stats are that they're too unbalanced and inconsistent with his actual skillset. You wrote that he has really low strength and dexterity, but he also utilizes an arm cannon (a projectile weapon that takes dexterity to aim well) and swords (one of which, the diamond sword, would be extremely heavy due to the density of diamond as a mineral). It's fine for him to be an intelligent inventor, but his strengths are overinflated and his weaknesses are too low compared to what they should be. It also doesn't make much sense for him to have high speed/agility, but low evasiveness without any context, so a section that explains why his stats are the way they are would be appreciated. __________________________________________________________________________ Backstory: This sort of backstory really irks me because it doesn't make any sense if you actually think it through. Think about all of the five year olds (aka kindergarteners) that you've met. There's absolutely no reasonable way that Erik could take care of both himself and a three year old sister at the same time without help from an adult. I'm *really* not a fan of most "parents died" backstories because they're rarely, fully thought out and overused in both real life and in fan-made content. In terms of potential, you can use his fascination with mythological creatures and urban legends by tying it in with an event that happened with him. Maybe he saw one or got attacked by one earlier in his life and one of his goals is to prove that this beast exists so he can get help tracking and getting rid of the monster. This is just an idea though and would take a bit more brainstorming. The personality section is under construction though, so I'll end there. __________________________________________________________________________ Personality: There's a few diamonds in the rough concerning this section, especially Erik's fascination with mythological creatures. If we're going by the current draft of his personality (as of me writing this comment), It doesn't really make sense that he'd be naive and constantly cheerful considering the adversity he had faced previously. He doesn't have to be a depressed edgelord, but it would make more sense to be a bit more cynical and calculated, considering both the tragedy of his parents dying and his high intelligence. __________________________________________________________________________ Weapons/Gadgets: Is Doctor Who (either as an actual person or as a TV show Erik likes) canon to this universe? If not, it seems a bit lazy to just borrrow The Doctor's tools to add to your character. If Doctor Who actually does exist in some form in this universe, then it would make more sense for Erik to simply take inspiration instead of completely borrowing from the show's items. It's best not to directly reference a show like that because it breaks immersion and makes it appear less original to your readers. I've already made my point about how his stats don't match up with his weaponry/capabilities in terms of strength and especially dexterity, since both an electric sword and lightsaber would be extremely dangerous to anyone wielding it with low dexterity. If I were writing this, I'd also use a different term to describe a "lightsaber" since that concept is a trademark of Star Wars. __________________________________________________________________________ Trivia: This should just be a powers/abilities section because the majority of the information in this section isn't "trivia". The definition of trivia, according to google is: "details, considerations, or pieces of information of little importance or value." The operative phrase in this is *little importance or value* meaning that it would be details that wouldn't fit anywhere else. Descriptions of things that he as invented and his top running speed belong in a backstory or abilities section respectively. I guess I can buy that he made a monitor at age 6, but it probably wasn't very complex or it was just made out of a bunch of spare parts. If I were writing this, I'd start with something less complex as his first invention, like a crossbow or something. Having Erik able to run at 767 miles/hour would make him just as fast as Sonic, which is a character trait that irks me. Sonic is supposed to be "The Fastest Thing Alive", so writing a fan character that matches him in speed (possibly while being in the same fanfic or story), kind of defeats the purpose of having Sonic in the first place. I would tone this down, as Erik could just as easily be a fast runner, but needs to utilize his invention skills to further boost his speed and power. If you want your character's #1 trait to be intelligence and inventiveness, then that aspect should thematically be present in most, if not all, parts of his abilities. Otherwise, there's no structural reason to make him smart to begin with. __________________________________________________________________________ Final Thoughts: In conclusion, this character has a lot of potential, but like its visual design, it's not focused and themed enough to make it stand out in a sea of Sonic FCs with varying levels of quality. When I look at pictures of him, I don't see "Erik" if that makes any sense. It almost seems like you had previously made an Okapi OC and recolored your own work to make a new character. So yeah, just trim the fat of his design and think through his backstory, abilities, ans such, and you'll end up with something really good. I'd give it around 2/5 stars currently, as there's definitely potential, but it's not realized enough to make it outstanding.